Monday, June 05, 2006

From Omer FarooqHYDERABAD - The suicide by a 19-year-old engineering student in Chittoor following ragging has raised an alarm here. The event occurred just as the first anniversary of the death of another ragging victim in the state is a few weeks away.Police said M. Srinadh Reddy, a first year student of Mechanical Engineering at the Venkateshwara Engineering College, committed suicide by jumping before a running training between Tirupati and Renigunta stations.The student, who had enrolled himself in the college only on September 24, has left a note blaming the ragging by senior students for his extreme step. According to police, the student jumped before a train in the early hours of Saturday. "Ragging is responsible for my suicide. I wish this fate would never fall on any other student, at least after my death," he wrote in a note and posted it to his parents in Y. Koduru village under Yerraguntala mandal of Cuddpah district.In another letter addressed to the students of his college, Srinadh Reddy made an emotional appeal to them to put an end to the menace of ragging. Having passed the Intermediate examinations with distinction, Reddy had joined the B.Tech course at Venkateshwara Engineering College.An 18-year-old student of Anantapur district, B. Govardhan, who was a student of first year B Sc (Agriculture) course at the Mahanandi college, had committed suicide in December.